


epilogue: one night

by days4daisy



Category: Penny Dreadful (TV)
Genre: Drug Use, Extra Treat, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:47:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21894625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/days4daisy/pseuds/days4daisy
Summary: Ethan looks at him, truly looks, for the first time since his arrival. He smiles. “It’s good to see you too, Victor,” he says.That old, forgotten feeling turns about in Victor’s stomach.
Relationships: Ethan Chandler/Victor Frankenstein
Comments: 4
Kudos: 53
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	epilogue: one night

**Author's Note:**

  * For [saturnina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/saturnina/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide, saturnina!

Victor is not accustomed to knocks at his door at this hour. He considers ignoring the summons, but it comes again. The second knock is sharper than the first.

Dread creeps down the back of Victor’s neck. It cannot be his creature, returned after all this time. No doubt Caliban - no, John Clare - still dwells somewhere in the dark corners of London. Victor does not remember when he last came in contact with his creation. It is a complicated world Victor inhabits, one of darkness, despair, and loss. His life has been a fog since the death of Miss Ives and his departure from the institution and his old classmate. (Lord Hyde, as is now proper.)

Lily, too, is a mystery to Victor - released by his hand into the world. To save it if she chooses, or doom it to damnation. 

It could be either of them, or both, his ill-begotten children come to strike him down at last. It is this thought that carries Victor’s heavy steps to the door. He fears them, he forever will. But after all he’s seen, all he’s done, how can he not welcome them at this or any hour?

It is not John Clare or Lily who stand beyond his door.

“Ethan?” The first name of his more robust brother slips out before Victor can think to call him by his proper title. Of those who may have appeared at his door at such an hour, Ethan's is the last name Victor considered. 

A trick of the low light, maybe, but Ethan does not seem to fill out his trenchcoat like he once did. The garment hangs off his slumped shoulders like an ill-shaped coat rack. Deep, dark circles cave under his eyes. His hair has begun to grow a bit, dark strands crossing a forehead pale and dotted with wetness. As is all of him, Victor realizes. The patter of raindrops touches his ears, a sprinkle against the worn roof of his building.

“Are you alright?” Victor asks.

There was a time that he would not have been so quick to concern with the American. Much has changed these past few years. 

“Hey doc,” Ethan greets. His voice shakes enough to notice even with the tap dance of rain above their heads. “It’s a little forward of me asking on such short notice, but I remember you saying you had a spare bed once. Or a sofa or something.”

“I have both those things,” Victor says. “Not as well put together as any of the wares at Sir Malcolm’s, but-”

“That’s well enough for me,” Ethan cuts in. It’s exhaustion Victor hears in his voice. A sluggish rasp lengthening his words. “You mind? It’s a little late to go out hunting for a room in my price range.” 

“Yes. I mean, no, of course. Come in.” Victor steps to the side. “Did something happen?" he asks. "Last I heard, you were staying with Sir Malcolm.”

Ethan’s boots thump heavy on Victor's floorboards. He rests a shoulder bag on the ground and sheds off his coat. Without the trench, he cuts his usual western figure. It’s Ethan’s posture that lacks; the curl of his back, the lifeless dangle of his arms.

“You heard right,” Ethan says, “but I couldn’t- I needed a few days, I-” He lets out a slow breath. “I can’t be in that house. I’ll go back, but right now-”

“I understand,” Victor tells him. Were he in Ethan’s position, he would choose to do the same. They all need a reprieve from the weight of that empty bedroom. “Whatever the reason, it’s good to see you. It’s been some time.”

Ethan looks at him, truly looks, for the first time since his arrival. He smiles. “It’s good to see you too, Victor,” he says.

That old, forgotten feeling turns about in Victor’s stomach.

“Can I get you something?” Victor asks. “Tea?”

Another of Ethan’s smiles. His posture loses its tension. “I’ll take something a little stronger if you’ve got it,” Ethan says.

“Of course, I forgot who I was speaking to.” Victor rolls his eyes good-naturedly. “Will brandy work for a warm up?”

“My favorite kind.” Ethan’s eyes twinkle in their teasing way, but his smile softens to something fond. “Thanks, Victor,” he says.

Victor brushes off the gratitude and heads to his meager kitchen. “The sofa is in the back. Are you hungry?”

“You offering to cook for me, doc?” Ethan’s voice resumes its teasing.

“I’m not anymore,” Victor snaps. He goes to work pouring their drinks. No need for Ethan to see the flustered warmth on his face.

Victor’s sofa is a good size, but Ethan seated takes up much of it. He is long and strong, and constricting such a figure has always seemed a challenge. Ethan handles it now by extending his arms along the back of the seat.

When Victor sits, it’s on the opposite end of the sofa, out of reach of Ethan’s dangling fingers. 

“So, how’s it been?” Ethan asks. “You still at that institute job? The one with your old mate?”

Victor raises a brow. “You remember all that?”

“Well yeah.” Ethan sounds surprised. “You told me, right?”

He isn’t wrong, but Victor did not expect his situation to make much of an impression. “I left the position,” Victor tells him. “There were...methods employed there that I could not support.”

Ethan makes a thoughtful sound behind a sip of brandy. “This coming from the guy that peels the skin off dead people,” he says. “Must have been pretty bad.”

Victor glares across the sofa. “Even the bloodless have standards, Mister Chandler. You of all people should know that.”

Ethan toasts his glass in Victor’s direction. “To be fair, I’ve got no business judging anyone else’s standards.

Victor raises his glass in turn before taking a drink of his own. The liquor burns down the passage of his throat. Drink is not Victor’s chosen vice. The warmth of brandy has never been enough to numb the pain of his afflictions. The puncture scars inside his elbows tell that story. 

He wonders what scars Ethan hides.

Ethan meets Victor’s eyes with a questioning look. Victor sighs. “It feels like a lifetime since we entered this company. But also like no time at all in some ways. There is so much I can diagnose thanks to my profession. But my own condition evades me.”

“I’m no good at naming stuff,” Ethan says. “But I know how that feels. I don’t-” He stops himself. Victor can guess at the darkness he does not speak. “I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do now,” Ethan says. “Got a job out by the docks, don’t think I told you that.”

“No return to the acting life for you then?” Victor asks.

Ethan smiles, but the light doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “I’m acting every day now. Don’t think I can play any more roles on top of the one I’ve already got.”

Victor wonders when Ethan began making so much sense. The days when they stood at odds, opposites forced together by circumstance, feel so long ago. 

He stands to take Ethan’s glass for a refill. Ethan keeps a hold on it and lolls his head back to meet Victor’s eyes. “Might as well bring the whole bottle,” he suggests.

Usually, Victor would scoff at the suggestion, but tonight it makes perfect sense. He fetches them the rest of the brandy.

***

Two-thirds of the bottle drains before Victor asks Ethan if he minds and shows him his medication kit. Ethan shakes his head, and Victor rolls back his sleeve. Victor has not shown others this side of himself often. But after all that's happened, few insecurities are too indecent for public scrutiny. 

Besides, if anyone will understand, it's Ethan.

Ethan watches Victor apply the leather strap on an arm already bruised purple. His fingers have a small tremor as he plunges the needle in. There is a rush of calm far more satisfying than a sip of any liquor could be. Victor is vaguely aware of Ethan sipping as he withdraws the syringe. The world fuzzes at the edges. Victor lets his cheek loll against the back of the sofa. 

“Does it help?” Ethan asks. He sounds both near and far away.

“It did once,” Victor replies. “Does the bottle help you?”

A chuckle leaves Ethan’s lips. He matches Victor’s pose, cheek against the sofa cushions. “I’m not sure it ever did,” he says. “But sometimes, if I’m lucky, it makes the parts I don’t want to think about go away for awhile. That’s worth it to me.”

Victor smiles. A shake of his head makes the sofa cushion scratch against his temple. “I used to hate you once,” he says. “Do you remember?”

“Oh yeah.” Fondness warms Ethan’s expression. “I wasn’t all that keen on you either.”

“You were so unmannered,” Victor says. “Typical American. Big and strong with no substance.”

“And you, doc. Always trying to prove how smart you were. Ego as big as your insecurity.”

“Hmm.” Victor blinks across at Ethan. He looks soft too, a gentle haze to his features and the lines of his clothes. “Are you only staying the one night?” he asks.

Victor still sees clear enough to read Ethan’s grin. “Is that an extended invitation?”

Victor knows he should play along with Ethan’s banter, for appearance if nothing else. But he finds himself caring about so little in recent days. Even less so tonight, the buzz of medication and the warmth of company compelling him. “Death surrounds me everywhere - death and emptiness. I once sought that solitude for my work. Death was a problem for solving. My life’s purpose. But now-”

“Now, it’d be nice to live among the living?” Ethan chimes in. It is rather sentimental. A fine bit of advice to extend to schoolchildren. But it’s true, all the same. 

“You can have an extended invitation if you cook your own damn food,” Victor tells him.

Ethan barks a laugh, and his eyes crinkle in a way that Victor likes. “Tell you what. If I stay a couple days, I’ll fix us both a few meals, how about that? I’m a pretty good cook if I do say so myself. Got lots of practice back with the infantry-”

“If this is one of your war stories, I’ll go ahead and turn in for the night,” Victor protests.

“You got a favorite meal?” Ethan asks, ignoring the barb. “Let me guess, you like a good sauce. Something a little fancier. Got some layers to it.”

Victor huffs, but something compels him to play along. “Favorite meals are not something I indulge in often. Funds and time for preparation of that sort escape me.”

“Lucky for you, I’m working odd hours. I can make that happen," Ethan says. "Let you come home to a good meal after a long day chopping up dead bodies."

Victor chuckles. “What a fine wife you would make,” he remarks.

Ethan’s hand slips off its cushion to pat Victor’s leg. “In more ways than one,” Ethan says.

Victor would bluster on a normal night. Shove Ethan’s hand off and put on a show of passionate disapproval.

He sets his hand over Ethan’s instead. Pats it at first. Then leaves the hand there, taking in the cool of Ethan’s skin against his own.

Ethan is watching him. Victor closes his eyes. “I’m sure that’s true,” Victor says. "In more ways than one."

Ethan does not have a smart comment this time, but Victor feels the hand under his move. Withdrawing, he assumes, until he feels the turn of Ethan’s palm. Fingers lace through his with a gentle squeeze.

Victor isn’t sure what it means, but he does not feel like moving. And with the warmth coursing through his veins, he has an excuse for doing as he pleases without thinking at all.


End file.
